


To Make a House a Home

by wrote_and_writ



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrote_and_writ/pseuds/wrote_and_writ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Favorite requested this fluff about fluff -- fluffy kittens, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Make a House a Home

Enjolras was nearly asleep when Grantaire put a soft hand on his chest. He rubbed his cheek against the top of Grantaire’s head and pulled him closer. Grantaire sighed into him and stroked Enjolras’s chest.  


“Can you imagine,” Grantaire said, his voice dropped low, “at this very moment, a little black kitten curled up just here?” He traced a finger along Enjolras’s throat.  


“No,” Enjolras sighed immediately. “Just, no, Grantaire. No pets.”  


It was on old argument.  


Grantaire and Enjolras officially moved in together the summer after Enjolras graduated, settling into a drafty loft apartment blocks away from Enjolras’s and Joly’s old place, still in the heart of the Old Town. Very little had changed but for the fact that their things were all in the same place. The Amis still rolled in and out of each other’s lives and spaces, though the rolling out had become more pronounced as Cosette and Marius were spending the year abroad while Cosette worked on a master’s thesis. Her departure had left Grantaire feeling more bereft than he imagined he could feel, and within a week, he had begun to pester Enjolras about adopting an animal.  


“Imagine the motor of its purr, rumbling right through to your bones,” Grantaire continued, drawing circles on Enjolras’s exposed skin. “And when you sit down to watch the news and news is all death and war and corruption and sorrow, imagine a marmalade orange cat, sleek and fat and full of himself, imagine him plopping down on your lap and keeping you captive until you put aside your worry and pet him.”  


“Grantaire…”  


“Or a witchy old tortoiseshell who always follows you in the bathroom and stares at you while you piss.”  


“Are you still trying to sell me on the idea of a cat?” Enjolras asked, a hint of laughter in his sleepy voice.  


“Imagine not having to guess if it is a seed or a mouse dropping in the oatmeal box.”  


“If you’d set traps,” Enjolras began, but he couldn’t finish that. It was he who stopped Grantaire from setting out traps and poisons.  


“Enjolras,” Grantaire purred and curled against him, “Enjolras, think of the innocent lives you’d be responsible for saving if we went to the shelter tomorrow.”  


“Cat or mice?”  


“Please?”  


Enjolras sat up and disentangled himself from Grantaire’s grasping arms.  


“Why?”  


Grantaire sat up and stretched, and Enjolras admired the long lines of his body. He was as catlike in personality as a human could be, smug and capricious, though he had little of a cat’s grace. In form, he was still a puppy who could not quite master his own feet. Enjolras felt a wicked grin form on his lips, and he pounced on Grantaire, pinning him to the mattress.  


“Why, Grantaire?” he teased, leaning down for a kiss and nipping Grantaire’s lips.  


“Because I want one.”  


“And you always get what you want?” Enjolras asked, regretting the question as that smug look settled over Grantaire’s features. He had lost the game before he had even properly begun to play. Grantaire seized him about the waist and tried to roll Enjolras onto his back, but he misjudged the space he had, and they landed, breathless and laughing, in a heap of limbs and blankets and pillows on the floor.  


“Please, Enjolras,” Grantaire said as he helped Enjolras to his feet, “please, may we get a cat? A house isn’t a home without a cat, and I want this to be our _home_.”  


Enjolras straightened the covers on the bed and ushered Grantaire underneath. Grantaire refused to budge until Enjolras relented.  


“Alright, alright. Tomorrow we will go and see if there is a cat that will deign to have us.”  


***  


Enjolras had made a grave mistake.  


He had assumed, very wrongly it turned out, that he and Grantaire would go to the shelter, find a suitable cat, and return home. But when they got to the ramshackle building that housed the Old Town Humane Society, Grantaire lost all reason.  


“We’re taking them all home,” he announced as he eyed the inhabitants of the shelter’s back room.  


“Grantaire, we can’t--”  


“All of them.”  


“Grantaire, we haven’t even asked the landlord if we--”  


“Here, this is Marie,” Grantaire said, handing Enjolras a fluffy Persian with sea blue eyes and a pale pink nose.  


“Um, that’s a boy,” the young woman who worked at the shelter said timidly. Grantaire silenced her with a glare.  


“His name is Marie.”  


“Grantaire, you’re being ridicu-shit!”  


Grantaire handed him a pumpkin-orange kitten with startlingly green eyes. “And D’artagnan.” He picked up sleek tortoiseshell who hid behind a scratching post. “And Orion.” A calico twined around his legs. “And the Duchess.” He picked up the calicoo and heaved a satisfied sigh. “We will take them all.”  


“Grantaire!” Enjolras said, his voice edging into panic. “Grantaire, we cannot afford four cats!”  


“How much for the cats?” Grantaire demanded of the girl.  


“Um, well, it’s ten dollars for the registration and twenty five to have them microchipped? So one forty?”  


“We’ll take them,” Grantaire said at the same moment Enjolras loudly cursed.  


“We’ll take them,” Grantaire said again.  


“Grantaire, if you could just wait a minute so we could talk about--”  


At that moment, a high-pitched, pathetic mewling filled the room, and a scrawn, runty black cat with a torn ear and ragged whiskers emerged from the open cage at the far end of the room. Enjolras looked at Grantaire.  


“No. Grantaire, we can’t--”  


“I’ll let you name it.”  


“Grantaire,” Enjolras said weakly. “We can’t. I mean, how can we? A hundred and seventy five dollars, Grantaire. And what will we feed them?”  


The girl looked over her shoulder, through the door to the reception area, then stepped inside and shut the door. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said, all hesitation gone.  


Grantaire cocked an eyebrow and nodded at her.  


“These cats are all scheduled for euthanization in the next week. They might get adopted, they might not. If you have room to take care of them, I’ll pay half.”  


Enjolras tried to form some sort of argument against it. True, their loft was spacious. But it was also drafty and the ceiling leaked when it rained and the windows stuck and while their landlord was kind and far too indulgent, particularly when Grantaire turned on his charms, he was unlikely to approve of five cats.  


“Enjolras,” Grantaire said. He held the black kitten up to Enjolras’s face, and the beast purred so hard Enjolras was afraid it would shake itself apart.  


“I’ll let you name this one.”  


“How generous.”  


“Seriously, Enjolras.” Grantaire stood close beside him. “I bet we can get Chetta to take one home. And Eponine, too. Gavroche’s birthday is coming up. He’d love Orion, don’t you think?” He dropped his voice low. “Please, Enjolras? We can’t leave these behind to die.”  


“There’s always going to be cats left behind,” Enjolras murmured, though in his heart, he knew he’d lost, he’d given up to Grantaire.  


Enjolras sighed.  


“Fine. Bring Scott along, too.”  


Grantaire snorted. “Scott?”  


“You have no room to judge. That Persian is clearly a Mr. Peanut. Marie indeed.”  


Grantaire grinned and kissed Enjolras on the cheek. Or rather he tried to, but Scott slashed out with a weak paw, batting him away and struggling from Grantaire’s arms to get to Enjolras.  


The look on Grantaire’s face was worth everything.  


They completed the paperwork while other shelter volunteers wrangled the cats into carriers, all but Scott, who refused to be separated from Enjolras and so it was now tucked into the pocket of Enjolras’s hoodie, purring contentedly. The young woman who helped them, Jeanne, took their address and promised to send along a delivery of food and litter and litter boxes as Grantaire and Enjolras now had to navigate their way home with four cat carriers.  


When the reached the landing of their apartment, Enjolras saw the door was already ajar. He heard soft conversation and laughter.  


“Oh good,” Grantaire said, shouldering past them, “they got here quicker than I thought.”  


“Grantaire, what--” but Grantaire was already in the apartment, balancing the carriers containing Marie Peanut (they had compromised) and the Duchess under one arm and a bag of treats and toys in the other. Enjolras followed with Orion and D’Artagnan, and the room fell silent.  


His friends gaped at them for a moment, and then Musichetta burst out with a bark of a laugh and the rest followed suit. Enjolras grimaced and Grantaire grinned that smug grin that Enjolras loved more than he cared to admit. Eponine skipped passed Grantaire and took Orion’s carrier from Enjolras.  


“You are the softest man I ever met,” she said, leaning forward to kiss Enjolras’s cheek.  


“Watch out--” he began, but his warning was not needed. Scott stuck its head out of the pocket and licked Eponine’s hand, startling a laugh from her. Enjolras grinned now.  


“Scott has good taste,” he called to Grantaire, who looked chagrined, but that could also have been because Duchess was clawing at his hand as he tried to fasten a collar around her neck before handing her off to Musichetta. Served him right.  


“Soft as a kitten,” Eponine cooed to Orion, who was nuzzling into her embrace.  


“I’m never going to hear the end of this,” he said as he handed D’Artagnan’s carrier to Bossuet.  


“No, my dearest boy, I don’t think you are.”  


Enjolras sighed and extracted Scott from his pocket. The pitiful creature meowed and yawned and licked his hand. Enjolras held it close and stroked its sleek fur until it was fast asleep. No, he was not likely to ever hear the end of this, but he was pleased to think that Grantaire was going to have to earn Scott’s trust and earn his way past Scott’s defense of Enjolras. He was rather looking forward to it all.


End file.
